


i'm pretty sure that this isn't how the story ends

by love1etter



Series: anyway, here's wonderwall [1]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bad Decisions, House Party, M/M, getting back together?? sort of????, post break up?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 12:19:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17324882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/love1etter/pseuds/love1etter
Summary: A voice that sounds a lot like Jisung sniggers in the back of his mind.Yeah rightit saysSeo Changbin, a functioning adult, I’d like to see the day that happens. He waves his hand around his head, trying to get rid of the voice like it’s an annoying mosquito. The real Jisung laughs at him.(or: bathrooms at parties are a liminal space and changbin hates his friends.)





	i'm pretty sure that this isn't how the story ends

**Author's Note:**

> this has been sitting around in my drafts for close to a year, originally as a fic for a different group. i finished it today instead of studying for exams.
> 
> disclaimer: alcohol is consumed in this bc parties are parties and young adults are young adults.

Changbin had been going to say something important. He was sure about it. He was sure that he’d come to this party with some sort of higher motivation than just getting completely smashed, but then Jisung had pressed drink after drink into his hand and somewhere around the second bottle of soju his thoughts had turned into a fuzzy wall of white noise. If he thinks hard enough he’s almost certain that he’d never planned on turning up in the first place, but Jisung had dragged him out of their apartment “It’ll be good for you to get out and socialise.” he’d said “You never leave your room these days. And finals are over, we should celebrate.” Changbin needs to find a new best friend.

But he doesn’t really mind. After all, if it had really been important he’d have found the time to say it before he got drunk. He’s a functioning adult after all.

A voice that sounds a lot like Jisung sniggers in the back of his mind. _Yeah right it says Seo Changbin, a functioning adult, I’d like to see the day that happens_. He waves his hand around his head, trying to get rid of the voice like it’s an annoying mosquito. The real Jisung laughs at him.

“The hell are you doing?” He’s leaning his head on someone’s shoulder and Changbin can’t quite make out who it is from his spot on the floor.

Changbin tries to shrug and almost spills his drink down his front. Jisung laughs again, eyes crinkling up, happier than he’s been in days.

The lights are dim and a cheap disco ball in the corner of the room sends shards of red and blue and green flying across the ceiling in dizzying patterns. A galaxy spins across the ceiling. Changbin thinks that maybe if he lies here and stares at it for long enough he could find the answer to life itself hidden away in the flickering lights.

A crash from the kitchen kicks him out of his reverie and he hears someone yell triumphantly. A second later, Chan bursts into the room, guitar in his hand and his cheeks flushed pink from the alcohol in his system. 

Woojin groans from across the other side of the room, his head sinking into his hands. “I thought I told you to hide his guitar somewhere he wouldn’t find.”

“There’s nowhere in this house that he couldn’t find it.” Minho replies with a shrug “I swear he has some sort of sixth sense.”

It isn’t that Chan is bad at playing the guitar or singing- far from it when he’s sober. But, drunk Chan is prone to over the top performances featuring misplayed chords and high notes where they don’t belong. If someone (normally Woojin) doesn’t manage to wrestle his guitar away from him, someone else (normally Seungmin) will threaten some form of physical violence to get him to stop.

Chan climbs onto the table, swaying slightly as he does, and points to the people sitting on the couches around the edge of the room.

“This one’s for you!” He yells to no one in particular. Changbin can see Felix pointing dramatically at himself and Woojin chugging his beer way faster than he probably should.

The first chord feels like a metal screw grating up Changbin’s spine and lodging itself in his head, so he pulls himself off the floor, stumbling slightly as his head spins, and heads towards the bathroom in an attempt to find some sort of peace.

It’s too bright in the bathroom and it takes his eyes a moment to adjust as he splashes some cold water on his face.

“Oh, hey.”

Changbin yelps and jumps sideways, knocking over a bottle of shampoo.

“Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Hyunjin is sitting in the bathtub with his feet resting on the taps.

Changbin takes a couple of deep breaths, trying to stop his heart from going at five hundred miles an hour. “It’s fine, I should've checked to see if there was anyone in here.” He’s impressed at how sober he sounds. 

“So what brings you to my humble abode?” Hyunjin gestures around the room with his bottle. His words are clear, crisp as a spring morning. He isn’t drunk. Not even in the slightest. Back when they were close, Hyunjin had hated the taste of alcohol and some things about people never change, even with time.

“Chan found his guitar,” Changbin admits, scratching the back of his neck. “What about you?”

Hyunjin sighs “I lost Seungmin and Minho somewhere and can’t find them. To be fair, most of the time they’re so obnoxious together that I don’t think I want to find them.”

“Is it the two of them together, or is it just Minho?” Changbin asks.

Hyunjin snorts and taps the rim of the bottle against his chin “Well there’s that too. When he’s drunk he gets way too invested in giving me advice about- well you know.” He lets it trail off with a shrug and a pointed look that lets Changbin know that he should definitely know what Hyunjin means. And maybe, if he was sober and had had a decent amount of sleep he might have, but right now he’s running on an alarming amount of Red Bull and little else and his brain feels like it’s being powered by tiny mice running on a treadmill.

“Uhh, yeah. That.” He says eloquently. By process of elimination there are only a few things it could be and, as Woojin is so fond of reminding him, the most obvious answer is usually the correct one. Changbin rarely listens to him when he says this because it’s normally followed swiftly by Woojin cuffing him across the back of the head and calling him an “emotionally constipated moron,”. With Woojin not actually here physically and instead only being a tiny disembodied voice in Changbin’s head, his advice makes much more sense.

Hyunjin raises one eyebrow, clearly not convinced by Changbin’s reply. The artificial light washes him out into a mural of black and grey and angular shapes. It jogs something in Changbin’s memory, another memory too similar to this. Proof that history repeats itself, although he doubts that it’s meant to repeat itself so quickly. Deja vu and all that. Time whirs to a halt and the universe holds its breath. Finally, the puzzle pieces in Changbin’s head click together.

“Oh,” He says, breath catching slightly in his throat. The sober part of him kicks in and at long last what he’d been meaning to say all those hours ago before he left his room dances on the tip of his tongue “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

“It’s about time.”

 

_It’s spring, leaves poking out of buds, flowers blooming for the first time, the feeling of something new. Hyunjin’s head is resting on his shoulder as they sit side by side on the grass. Changbin presses his palms against the ground, it’s solid and reliable, unlike everything else in his life._

_“There’s something I want to ask you,” Hyunjin says carefully and Changbin already knows what it’s going to be before Hyunjin has the chance to say it. Hyunjin wears his heart on his sleeve with the recklessness of someone who has nothing to lose and even Changbin, for all his shortcomings and lack of emotional depth can see it._

_Changbin hums in response, picking a daisy from the ground beside him and twirling it between his fingers._

_“Do you want to go and get coffee some time?”_

_“We always get coffee,” Changbin says. Because it’s true._

_Hyunjin’s ears are turning red in the way that they always do when he’s nervous or embarrassed, “No, I mean-”_

_“Are you trying to ask me on a date?” Changbin tries to keep the laughter out of his voice and fails spectacularly._

_“Maybe,” Hyunjin mumbles, “But only if you say yes.”_

_Changbin reaches for Hyunjin’s hand and holds it tight. “Yeah, I’d love that.”  
_

 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Seo Changbin, that you’re too good at avoiding the things that you want to avoid,” Hyunjin says with a wry smile. His hair is messy as if he’s run his hands through it one too many times. _It suits him_ Changbin thinks absently to himself.

“What can I say,” Changbin shrugs and hopes it hides the way his hands are shaking slightly “It’s a talent.”

“If you don’t want to talk it’s fine.” Hyunjin sounds resigned. Changbin can hear the tiredness in his voice and he knows that if he could bring himself to look at Hyunjin’s face that it’d be reflected there too. “This isn’t exactly the best time or the place.” 

There’s a star collapsing inside Changbin’s chest and slowly pulling him apart piece by piece “It’s as good as any,” If there was any time for the roof to fly off and for him to somehow get sucked out into space, then now would be it. Silence stretches out for miles between them and Changbin is too afraid to speak in case he puts his foot wrong and fucks this up even more than he already has. 

“So,” Hyunjin draws the word out and then lets it fall like a raindrop hurtling towards the ground.

Changbin decides to take the leap. Nothing great in history had ever been achieved by playing it safe “I wanted to ask you, where we ever friends?”

Hyunjin blinks, startled. He looks remarkably owlish “What?”

Changbin shrugs slightly “Y’know, we were acquaintances, then something weird that I can’t really put into words, and then we dated. Were we ever friends at any point?”

“I’d like to think we were,” Hyunjin says, he lets his head fall back until its resting on the wall behind him and he’s staring at the ceiling. Every word he says is whisper soft, but it makes Changbin feel like his heart is planning its escape through his mouth “I trusted you, I told you everything. You made me laugh. I hope that counts as friends.”

_Friends_ had been rather overshadowed by the whole dating part. Maybe that’s why their relationship had burned out so fast. A candle lit at both ends. A forest fire out of control. With nothing to fall back on when it all turned to ash. 

“Yeah,” Changbin sits down on the closed lid of the toilet, pulling his knees up underneath his chin. The porcelain is cool against his skin and he shivers slightly. It’s hardly the most glamourous of seats, but it’s the best he can do at this moment. Unless he feels like joining Hyunjin in the bathtub and that would open a whole other kettle of fish that he really doesn’t want to have to deal with right now. “I hope it counts as well.”

 

_Summer comes early this year, bringing with it blue skies and the sort of humid heat that makes your shirt stick to your back only seconds after stepping outside. It also brings with it the unwanted stress of exams, and then after they speed past in a haze of late nighters and last minute cramming, it brings with it the giddy sense of freedom._

_Clouds skid across the sky and Hyunjin sticks the spoon from his McFlurry in Changbin’s mouth to get him to shut up for a second. It’s not Changbin’s fault that he has so much to say. He’s barely seen Hyunjin for the last few weeks and he’s missed him so bad that it almost, _almost_ hurt._

_“I’ve been thinking,” Hyunjin says slowly, there’s something soft about his expression. It’s like warm summer afternoons and the feeling you get when you’re laughing with your friends over some stupid inside joke. Changbin isn’t sure what it means and for once not knowing doesn’t scare him._

_“I’m going home over break.”_

_Changbin pulls the spoon out of his mouth to reply, his other hand tangled with Hyunjin’s, “Oh.” He says simply. There isn’t much else to say_

_“It’s been too long.” Hyunjin sighs and smiles, a little bit wistful and a little bit sad, “I’ll miss you.” These days they spend too much time apart and not enough time together. They move in different circles, their majors as different as night and day, their apartments on opposite ends of campus. The only overlap exists in the form of a handful of mutual friends, and Changbin knows that he should really make more of an effort, but he doesn’t know where to start._

_“I’ll miss you too,” He says and leans over to press a quick kiss to Hyunjin’s lips. It’s chaste, Hyunjin has never been big on PDA, but this is enough. “But break isn’t forever. I’ll see you again soon. ” He sounds more like he’s convincing himself at this point. Besides, it’s not like he’ll have much free time to miss Hyunjin in. Jisung is planning some harebrained and mildly ridiculous road trip, so he’ll probably be spending most of his time trying not to die or stopping Jisung from almost dying._

_“Yeah,” Hyunjin leans his head on Changbin’s shoulder. He’s just tall enough that it’s an awkward angle when they’re walking along like this, but that doesn’t seem to stop him._

_“We should get going,” Changbin says, “The others will be waiting for us.”_

 

Changbin feels slightly like he’s floating, the shots he’d downed moments before leaving the living room finally hitting his system. Around him, the room spins. Like he’s a child on a merry go round. Somewhere in the distance, he hears Jeongin screaming and the bass of the song playing kicks up a notch until he can feel each note vibrate in his chest right next to his heart. 

“I’d like to start over,” Changbin says decisively. The tone doesn’t quite suit how his words slur together slightly at the end. “From the beginning,” 

He waits for Hyunjin to say something, but he doesn’t. Just keeps staring at Changbin, his gaze careful and calculating. Changbin gets up, sways, stumbles as the room tips alarmingly and grabs the sink to steady himself. When everything stops moving, he crosses the room and perches on the edge of the bathtub. Slowly, he reaches one hand out toward Hyunjin.

“Hi,” He says “I’m Seo Changbin,”.

_Their first proper fight is also their last. Changbin should have seen it coming, he should’ve seen it coming and stopped it before it had the chance to build into an avalanche and swallow them both. But he hadn’t._

_There had been yelling and slammed doors and anger so strong that Changbin can’t even remember what the cause of it had been._

_The trees outside turn golden and then brown as autumn begins, and Hyunjin leaves and doesn’t come back._

Hyunjin keeps staring, first at Changbin’s face and then at his hand and then he reaches out and shakes it. “Hwang Hyunjin,” He says softly, “Have we met before?”

This Changbin can do. Small talk and jokes are something he excels at.

“Nope,” Changbin grins, “I would’ve remembered a face as pretty as yours.” Hyunjin groans at the joke and the weird tension that’s been choking them evaporates.

“I’m sorry.” Changbin blurts out before he can stop himself, apparently, his brain to mouth filter had decided that now was the time to leave him and he was approximately two seconds from making a massive fool of himself. “About before, I was an asshole and-”

Hyunjin holds up a hand, stopping his tirade in its tracks. “I thought we were starting over?” He says and for a second Changbin is convinced that he’s already managed to ruin whatever they had, and then Hyunjin smiles. The smile that makes his cheek dimple and his eyes disappear into crescents. “Besides, I was kind of an asshole as well.”

“Let’s get out of here.”

Hyunjin raises an eyebrow, “Damn, you’re making a move fast. We’ve only known each other for five minutes.”

Changbin can feel his cheeks catch fire, “I mean out of the bathroom not-”

“I know, I know,” Hyunjin descends into a fit of giggles and lets Changbin pull him out of the bathtub and out of the door. They stumble down the corridor, mostly because Changbin can’t quite get his feet to work the way he wants them to and he’s refusing to let go of Hyunjin’s hand. 

“There you are!” Jisung shouts the second he catches sight of them. He tries to get to his feet, but there’s someone lying on his legs so he ends up falling right back onto his ass. “I thought you fell into the toilet and drowned!” He sounds way too happy about it. Changbin flips him the bird.

Minho appears out of nowhere, barrelling into Hyunjin like a tornado. “Never leave me again,” He half shouts half cries, “I had to listen to Felix’s rendition of bohemian rhapsody for twenty minutes straight. Freddie Mercury is seconds away from coming back to life to seek vengeance.” He looks from Hyunjin, to Hyunjin’s hand still holding Changbin’s, to Changbin’s cherry red face, and then turns to Jisung.

“It’s only been a month.” He says, “Cough up.”

Jisung groans and reaches into his pocket, pulling out a couple of crumpled notes. Changbin’s eyes widen slightly.

“You had a _bet_ on us.” He hisses.

“Did not.” Jisung says at the same time that Minho says “You betcha.”. Changbin wacks Jisung over the back of the head.

“This is why everyone hates business majors.” He tells him and Jisung pouts as if he isn’t eighteen years old, “We’re not even back together.”

“I know,” Minho grins devilishly and Changbin feels scared for his life, “There’s another betting pool on that.”

“Economics is not the same as business.” Jisung points out mournfully, everyone ignores him.

Everything fades out around him as his friends bicker and for the first time in a month the slightly sick feeling in the pit of his stomach disappears. Jisung stands up and threads his arm through Changbin’s to keep himself upright and Changbin leans against him. Felix appears and starts talking to Minho, bouncing from foot to foot, his hair standing on end in a mad mess. 

Hyunjin still hasn’t let go of his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> any feedback is appreciated!! :D
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/daybreaksmp3) [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/IoveIines)


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